About ready to give up

notolover(5)May 28, 2012

I bought my first Adenium at Lowes a few years ago. It lost all of its leaves, but flowered for a long period. I acquired a few more since then. I live in the high desert so I face all kinds of problems regarding these plants.

My major problem is that none of them will hold their leaves for any length of time. A few weeks ago the biggest one was growing perfectly then the leaves dried out and fell off. It was in an eastern window getting a lot of light, but then the big tree outside leafed out so maybe it wasn't getting enough sun. I have moved it so it gets more light.

I can't seem to find the ideal place for them. I had them outside last year and not a single leaf grew on any of them. I think it gets too cold at night. I moved them into my sunroom and they started growing leaves, but now I can't keep up with the mealy bugs so when they get leaves they still fall off. If I can't get a handle on the mealy bugs I think I'm going to give up.

Also, what is the best commercial insecticide to use on DRs? Are the Bayer products okay? Are they sensitive to any type of chemical?

I have to repot so I will go back and find the best mix in posted in the cactus forum. I was just using a cactus mix (from a gardening center) with extra pumice.

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with your DR. It sounds like you've got the right soil mix for starters. Then what are your daytime / nighttime temps? Are you waiting for the soil to dry out in between waterings? The plants can be grown indoors, but of course the more sun the better.

And spider mites / mealy bugs can be an indoor issue. I grow outdoors, but I had a plant with mealy bugs before and I fought them with a mixture of dish soap and water. It softens their strong outer coating and kills them and you can pick them off too. It may take 1-3 applications but it works.

I'm sure some more folks will offer up some advice too, hang in there!

Please don't give up! If your night temps are in mid 50 not lower keep them outside, they need a lot of sun! Some people believe that DRs don't need much water, big mistake, they are heavy drinkers in the summer and dryness can cause dormancy. I keep mine in gritty mix feeding with diluted fertilizer (when I get a chance to water between rains), but it may dry to fast in your conditions, so you may need to adjust it to hold more water. I keep them dry with no feeding December-February.
Mealybugs are pesky creatures but rubbing alcohol helps, if you are tired of picking, get bayers tree and shrub advanced systemic stuff I used it on my DRs with no problems. Good news is that adeniums do fine with no foliage for prolonged periods of time; one of my DR spent most of last year with no leaves, had to defoliate to get rid of mealies, and it's OK now! There are a lot of helpful souls on this forum and good chance they will help you figure out how to keep your adeniums happy.
Good luck, Aggie

Okay I'm convinced to try them outside again--what do I have to lose? During the summer the night lows are generally in the 50s unless we have a cloud cover (very rare). I move my cacti outside and they love it.

I think another problem is the drying winds we get. As a preventive measure, I had a mister running constantly on them last year and maybe they didn't like that? We have very low humidity and intense sun because we are at 4750 ft.

Aggie: I use the bayer tree stuff on my cacti, but it is the old formula without the plant food. I read somewhere not to use the new formula on potted plants, but the old one is very hard to find. I only have about a half gallon left of the old stuff.

Hello and welcome to the forum...I hope you enjoy it and find some useful info here. I'm glad you have decided to try again and I wish you and your plants well! You will get some good advice from those who have similar conditions to deal with so I'm sure you will succeed.
Gill from the UK.